The Master of the Blind Tower - a vast fortification housing countless telepaths - has been murdered. Arbites officer Shira Calpurnia is trying to dig the killer out of Tower's shadowy and twisting halls. Dealing with the inevitable hostility, deception and intrigue is bad enough, but dealing with a station full of half-crazed seers whose minds stare into the Warp every day doesn't help, and doing it under the vindictive eye of an insecure Arbiter "minder" makes things tenser still. What makes it worst of all is that Calpurnia has to confront the one kind of weakness and failure she may not be able to deal with: her own.